


reprisals

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8750950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Lando, of course. Closing his eyes, Poe took a deep breath. He still hadn’t spoken to Lando himself. Perhaps he should have, but he’d felt uncomfortable depriving others from the chance to contact their families in those few hours each day General Organa had freed up the comms for that purpose. And besides, there was still so much left to do to prepare for abandoning their base on D’Qar…He hadn’t realized no one else had contacted him either. Though why he might have thought that seemed ridiculous in retrospect. Regret gnawed at him for that oversight. Lando deserved better. Lando also deserved more than hearing bad news from someone who didn’t want to give it. And, frankly, if he could do this for the general, he would do so happily.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primeideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/gifts).



In a situation like this, there wasn’t a lot Poe—or anyone really—could do for General Organa. There wasn’t a lot _most_ people could do if he was being honest. Poe didn’t know General Solo very well, having only met him a handful of times and only in short bursts at that, one or the other of them too busy with Resistance business to get to know one another.

Poe knew that General Organa loved him; that was good enough for Poe.

But good enough didn’t mean Poe had the right to offer comfort when it was unwanted. He wasn’t her friend. He was almost family maybe, existing for her in some nebulous space between that and her most trusted right hand. With her husband murdered, her son an enemy, and her brother only recently returned to her, he supposed it was something and hoped his presence helped in some small way. But that still didn’t give him the freedom to poke at her, not when guilt licked at him and trying to make her feel better would’ve done more to assuage it than any feelings of grief she carried with her.

He tried to avoid bothering the general in her off hours, knowing how rare they were, how precious, how often she was surrounded by people the rest of the time. But sometimes, the itch to _do_ something overrode his sense of propriety and… and sometimes fathers and husbands and generals died and…

As Poe lifted his hand to ring the chime next to the door of her quarters, he was startled to find it already sliding open. And though he stepped back, thought maybe he’d tripped the sensors somehow and wanted to avoid violating the general’s privacy, the door finished its journey and it became too late to do anything but see inside.

“I should tell him,” the general said before Poe could stop himself from hearing, her head bowed forward. Poe couldn’t see Skywalker’s face, but he’d learned the slope of his shoulders within minutes of their meeting. Poe recognized regret when he saw it and a back bowed under the weight of whatever demons had perched themselves on his shoulders.

“Leia, I’d be more than willing to—” Luke replied, though that didn’t seem true at all, his words spoken with a tinge of impetuousness, ragged around the edges with frustration. It was more emotion than he’d heard out of the Jedi since he got here, which… was a lot sooner than he’d expected considering how hard they’d had to search for the rest of the map in the first place. On his worst days, when he’d been just that little bit too embittered by his failure to get that last map piece, he thought Luke a coward.

Now, considering how quickly he and Rey had made it back, he wondered if maybe he’d taken himself out of the equation for a greater purpose. For a coward, for someone who didn’t want to come back… he’d sure as hell returned quickly enough.

“Tell who?” Poe blurted out, less out of interest than inspiration. He didn’t have access to the Force—some days, he wished he did, not least of all because he was morbidly curious about what he could do in the cockpit of his X-wing with that kind of power at his disposal—but most people weren’t immune to moments of special insight, least of all him. It might’ve just been luck, but who’s to say it wasn’t the universe guiding him, too?

Poe, at least, didn’t have to guess what needed to be told.

There were only two things on anyone’s mind right now and there was no hiding one of them. It stood to reason they meant the news of General Solo’s death, then, and not the destruction of the Hosnian system.

Leia stiffened, anger stoking itself to life in her eyes as Poe watched, willing to bear the brunt of it for having interrupted them so callously. But just as quickly as her rage crested, it guttered out into nothingness, leaving behind something even worse in its wake. Caught, Poe took the chance and stepped into the room, that damned door sliding shut behind him with just as much ease as it had when it opened.

“Lando doesn’t know yet,” she said, gravel-voiced. The arch of her eyebrow high on her forehead suggested she would rather have asked him what Poe was doing here. “I haven’t had the time…”

“It’s only been a few days,” Skywalker pointed out, not unreasonable, gentle in his delivery.

Lando, of course. Closing his eyes, Poe took a deep breath. He still hadn’t spoken to Lando himself. Perhaps he should have, but he’d felt uncomfortable depriving others from the chance to contact their families in those few hours each day General Organa had freed up the comms for that purpose. And besides, there was still so much left to do to prepare for abandoning their base on D’Qar…

He hadn’t realized no one else had contacted him either. Though why he might have thought that seemed ridiculous in retrospect. Remorse gnawed at him for that oversight. Lando deserved better. Lando also deserved more than hearing bad news from someone who didn’t want to give it. And, frankly, if he could do this for the general, he _would_ do so happily.

“I’ll do it,” he said, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that said he was overstepping his bounds. “That is—I can contact him for you if you’d like, General.”

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, thoughtful. He tried not to make a big deal about his association with Lando, but he didn’t keep it a secret either. She took a long time to answer, arms crossed, fingers tapping against her biceps. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” He shook his head. “Of course not.”

She frowned, dubious, and didn’t speak for a moment, mulling over the offer. Poe tightened his hands into fists behind his back and relaxed them again in quick repetitions as he waited for her response.

“Okay, Poe.” Glancing down at her desk briefly, she pressed her lips together, before looking back at him. “Take a few days. Go see him.”

“General?” _I never said anything about leaving the base to tell him. That’s not why I made the offer_. “I should be here. For the evacuation and…”

“Go to him,” the general repeated. “I’ll make it an order if I have to. We’re still at least a week away from being ready to even think about evacuating. And if past experience is any indication, this’ll be the last time we’re safe from First Order interference for a very long time. They know what we’re capable of now because of that blow we dealt them, but they need time to regroup. You’ll never have a better chance to see him than right now.”

There would be no winning against her, he knew. And she was right. And, selfishly perhaps, he _wanted_ a few days with him. He wanted whatever he could get, knowing he might have nothing if he didn’t take it now. “I—thank you, General.” He inclined his head in Skywalker’s direction, taking a tentative step back. “Master Skywalker.”

“Thank you, Poe,” the general answered, exchanging a look with her brother, her gaze unfocused, distracted. Probably as yet another situation came to mind that needed her immediate attention just in time to replace the one she’d just resolved.

Poe didn’t envy her the job she’d saddled herself with, but he was honored to help in whatever small way he could.

*

Returning to Bespin felt a little bit like coming home, the particular cadence of the space traffic controller’s voice, the swirl of the clouds against the red-pink-blue sky, the way Cloud City hung like a jewel in the center of all of it—or as close to the center as Poe cared about.

There weren’t many places Poe could see himself settling down outside of Yavin, but this? This was one of them. One day, he might even have the chance to tell Lando that, too.

The nondescript X-wing Leia had permitted him to use slipped as easily into the hangar he’d been cleared to enter as it always did, almost like it, too, was glad to be here. Or maybe that was just Poe imagining things.

Despite the reason he’d had to come, he couldn’t help but smile, just a little bit, at the opportunity given to him here. Popping the cockpit, he pushed himself out of his seat and threw his legs over the side of the ship and jumped down from the ladder.

“You in a hurry to get somewhere?” a voice called from behind him, a beloved, warm, amused voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in months except over comms that threatened to strip the life out of every sound that crossed them.

Poe turned, resisting the urge to throw himself into the voice’s arms. “Lando Calrissian,” he said, tempering the joy he felt at seeing Lando by remembering the hurt he was about to cause him. “You look better and better every time I see you.”

Lando’s brow kicked up high on his forehead and he rolled his eyes. “It gives me no end of pleasure to know you still have a sense of taste,” he replied, a self-deprecating laugh in his voice, “but you’re laying it on pretty thick even for you.”

Clasping his arms on Lando’s shoulders, he pressed a nearly discreet kiss to his cheek, a little too close to his mouth to be entirely free of suggestion. Then, wagging his finger in Lando’s face, he answered, “And you’re as gracious as ever, too. I’ve missed that about you.”

“Sure you have.” With a smooth motion of his hand, he waved Poe forward. “But let’s take this inside and get it over with, hmm?”

Poe shoved his hands into his pockets, forming them into fists where no one could see it. As they crossed the hangar floor, Poe felt a lot of eyes on him—and hoped he was just fabricating the scrutiny around them. “That obvious, huh?”

“A little. More the fact that you’re here at all and a little unexpectedly at that. I didn’t even have time to have those dried koyo melon slices flown in from your dad’s place that you like so much.”

Now it was Poe’s turn to roll his eyes. But as much as he wanted to shrug it off, it was impossible not to be touched by Lando’s attention to detail, his determination to always make Poe feel as welcome as possible. “You don’t have to do that, you know?”

“I know,” Lando replied, airy, winding his arm around Poe’s shoulder. “But I like to.”

“Well, you know me,” Poe said, leaning against Lando’s side. What he wouldn’t have given for this to be a routine break. Then it would be perfect. “The thought’s always been what counts in my book.”

*

The door to Lando’s quarters shut behind Poe, air whuffing against the back of his neck, urging him forward. The hairs there prickled, but it had less to do with that than the news he was supposed to be sharing.

“So,” Lando said, grabbing Poe by the hand and pulling him down the handful of steps into the living area, elegant and sleek save for the plush nerf leather couch he’d insisted on dragging all the way back from Yavin when he realized that it was Poe’s favorite couch and that Kes had been looking to get rid of it for years and had never had the heart to do it. “Rip it off, right? It’s the best way to handle bad news I’ve ever found.”

Hearing that didn’t make the words any easier to spit out. It didn’t make any of it any easier.

Lando patted the back of the couch with one hand and grasped Poe by the forearm with the other, guiding him around the front and urging him to sit, his hand firm as it moved to Poe’s shoulder. This close to his neck, Poe felt a slight tremor in Lando’s fingers and heard the faintly shuddering breath he took, perhaps in an attempt to steady himself.

It wasn’t fair to keep it from him any longer.

His knee hiked up onto the couch as he turned. Looking up, taking Lando’s hands in his own, he said, “It’s Han.” He couldn’t quite look Lando in the eye, but he did his best.

Lando leaned forward on his elbows, the couch’s back cushions flattening. The only upside to this, Poe thought, was that it brought Lando’s face close enough that he could reach up to smooth his fingers over Lando’s cheeks before pulling him into a hug. Poe could do a lot of things, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to bear the full brunt of the desolation as he confirmed for Lando what he no doubt already expected.

“What happened?” Lando asked, lips moving against Poe’s clavicle, the words pressing warm into his skin.

Poe’s eyes squeezed shut and he took a shuddering, bracing breath. His voice, when he got it to work finally, was barely above a whisper. “Kylo Ren. He—” He hadn’t gotten the full story from Rey, felt too guilty asking her about it when Finn was laid up in medical and the only person she really _knew_ on D’Qar was Chewbacca and he’d, understandably, been in no position to comfort her. He hadn’t asked the general for the grisly details either. All he knew was Kylo Ren killed Han Solo and most of the people he cared about were in pain and there was not a damned thing he could do about it. Maybe he should’ve asked. Would it help Lando to know that?

He hadn’t considered it.

“I don’t know much more than that. I—” _I can’t tell you everything. Or even what we were_ doing.

“It’s okay,” Lando said. He sounded like he was speaking through a mask or a tank full of bacta or—his words garbled by the sudden, striking loss. A galaxy without Han Solo in it. There were a lot of people out there who probably couldn’t imagine such a thing. He took another shaky breath and broke Poe’s heart all over again with it. “I know.”

He didn’t know. And Poe should’ve been the one to tell him.

“I’m surprised Han made it as long as he did,” Lando said, a little more even. “I’m surprised a lot of us made it as long as we have.”

Poe squeezed Lando tighter, his hands fisting in his cape. “I’m sorry, Lando,” he said, shaking his head. If he ever got a hold of Kylo Ren, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Something stupid probably. Even knowing the man could do things Poe was incapable of, that Poe was a better shot than most, but nothing special until he got in the cockpit of his X-wing. Even knowing the Force was with Kylo Ren and Poe—

No. No, he couldn’t do that to Lando. He couldn’t do that to his _family_.

“Don’t be sorry,” Lando answered, helpless anger tinging his tone. Poe could relate to that. “Just be careful.”

“I will.” For a long time, Poe hadn’t thought much about beyond doing everything he could for the Resistance cause. He hadn’t considered the cost to his loved ones, not enough. But he’d been lucky and now—now he could do something about it. He could be better. He would do better. And he’d come home. Whatever it took. “I’ll do everything I can to come back.”

Lando exhaled, loud and heavy, and nodded, his cheek scraping against Poe’s throat in a way that sent shivers down Poe’s spine. “I know you will.”

And though he couldn’t make this promise out loud, he made it to himself anyway.

 _I’m coming back. I’ll always come back. As long as I can, I’ll come back_.


End file.
